1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dryer for drying spin-dried laundry or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
When laundry is washed in a washer, it is common to add a treatment agent to water, in particular, rinsing water. Typical treatment agents are fabric-softening and starching agents. In addition, today, there is increasing need for antimicrobial treatment of laundry.
From the hygienic point of view, laundry is best dried by being aired in the sun. Today, however, as more women go out to work and as more families live separately from their parents', the number of households is increasing in which nobody is home during the day. Such households have no choice but to dry laundry by airing it indoors.
Today, an increasing number of households use dryers to dry laundry, but many do so just for a short while, rather than to the end, and then continue to dry it by airing it indoors.
Compared with laundry aired in the sun, laundry aired indoors is more prone to proliferation of bacteria and mold. This is particularly notable under conditions where it takes time for laundry to dry, for example at high humidity as in a rainy season and at cold temperature as in winter. Proliferation of bacteria and mold may go so far as to make laundry stink.
On the other hand, with the recent trend toward economizing, many households reuse after-bathing water in laundry washing. The trouble with this is that after-bathing water is infected with bacteria that have proliferated overnight. These bacteria adhere to laundry and further proliferate, causing the laundry to stink.
Hence, in households that routinely have no choice but to air laundry indoors or routinely reuse after-bathing water in laundry washing, there is much need for antibacterial treatment of fabric articles with a view to suppressing proliferation of bacteria and mold.
Nowadays, many clothes are previously treated by antibacterial-deodorizing or bacteriostatic treatment. It is, however, difficult to procure such products as all the fabric articles used in a household. Moreover, the effect of antibacterial-deodorizing treatment diminishes as products treated with it are washed repeatedly.
From here comes the idea of treating laundry by antibacterial treatment every time it is washed. For example, Patent Documents 1 and 2 listed below disclose washers wherein silver ions are added to washing water by applying a voltage between silver electrodes; Patent Document 3 listed below discloses a washer furnished with a silver elution cartridge from which silver ions are eluted as a result of a silver eluting material (e.g., silver sulphide) being reacted with hypochlorous acid present in tap water. In all these washers, laundry is dipped in water containing antibacterial metal ions so that the metal ions attach to the laundry, and thereby antibacterial treatment of the laundry is achieved.
Whereas most conventional dryers for drying laundry are equipped with a drying function alone, an increasing number of recent ones are equipped with a washing function as well. An example of such a washer-dryer is disclosed in Patent Document 4 listed below.    Patent Document 1: JP-A-H5-74487 (page 1, FIG. 1)    Patent Document 2: JP-A-2001-276484 (page 2, FIG. 1)    Patent Document 3: JP-A-2002-113288 (pages 4-6, FIGS. 1 and 2)    Patent Document 4: JP-A-2004-8429 (pages 4-9, FIGS. 1-12)